What’s happening to PIA?

Flying on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which many have derogatively started to call Perhaps It Arrives airline, from Islamabad to Quetta recently, with the flight scheduled to continue to Karachi, we were made to sit in a plane that actually smelled almost as bad as a urinal that had not been cleaned for sometime. The smell hit you as soon as you entered the main cabin of the plane. It remained there even when the air conditioning was eventually turned on but did get a bit muffled, but came back quite strongly when we landed in Quetta and the air conditioning was eventually turned off. The flight was not a pleasant experience.
The plane was clearly very old: apart from the smell, its seats were sagging, seat covers felt almost soggy, and every metal or plastic surface felt gritty and dirty, and the plane rattled and made all sorts of noises when it accelerated for take off and when it touched ground again as it was landing. Clearly, the plane needed a lot of refurbishment. I hope the more crucial parts of the plane are being kept better maintained.
En-route, PIA still offered a mini meal. But instead of the standard Biryani they used to offer, we got a ‘meal-box’ that had a small muffin sized burger and piece of cake in it. The meal box was nicely printed but the food inside was not that great.
The crew, both on the way to Quetta and back, was very polite and cordial and did all they could to facilitate the passengers. But it is just that the equipment PIA is using and some of the organisational issues that PIA is facing are clearly making standards come down.
Having experienced PIA myself, I went through the papers of the last few weeks and months to see the kind of problems PIA has been facing. It seems there are systematic and systemic issues PIA is facing. A lot of flights are being delayed due to ‘technical faults’ and a lot more of these faults are also developing during flights as well, leading to more ‘emergency’ landings or near misses. The equipment is starting to fail more often as well: wheels do not retract properly, luggage bay doors do not open etc.
PIA was, only a few years back, also not allowed to fly to some European destinations. The lack of proper maintenance was reported as the main reason for the restriction. It was not the quality of the crew or the pilots, it had to do with maintenance and/or repairs.
What is also strange is also some of the choices PIA has made and is making to cut costs and deal with pressures they are facing. Why do they offer meals on domestic flights? The longest domestic flight is less than 2 hours of flying time. Why does PIA need to offer meals on these? Could they not announce that they will offer drinks to people and keep a few snacks for people who might have medical issues but not offer meals anymore? This would save all the expense that PIA does on the very daintily printed meal boxes as well as what is paid to the contractors. From what I saw, most people might have eaten some of what was in the boxes but most of it was wasted anyway. It will be better for the environment too to do away with these meals and meal boxes.
Similarly why does PIA offer newspapers to travellers? And it does not matter what time the flight is, people are offered papers to read? We can do without them as well. Why waste money on these when all airports have televisions for showing breaking news and they also have newspaper stalls where passengers who want to read papers can buy them? Why should PIA offer these?
The issue, it seems, is related to management. PIA needs to rethink what sort of airline it is and what sort of airline it can be. PIA still has a lot of loyal customers who have a soft corner for the airline, and it still has a, relatively speaking, monopoly position on most domestic routes.
On the international side, it needs to retain not only the loyal customers but attract most of the diaspora travellers that visit Pakistan every so often. It might not be possible for PIA to attract all of this traffic, and especially those who are not from Pakistan, but it should be possible for PIA to attract a lot of the Pakistani or Pakistani origin travellers. Why should these travellers be using Emirates or Etihad or similar carriers right now? PIA has to make concerted efforts to get these travellers or get them back.
On the domestic side, PIA has to figure out what is needed. My feeling is, given the short domestic flights we have, people are looking for timely and safe service in a clean and cordial environment. PIA should look at some of the airlines around the globe who have made changes in their approach to service or people who have even created new airlines focusing on safety, timely arrival and friendly service and made a success of such airlines. Such airlines tend to be more successful on shorter and usually domestic routes.
PIA is clearly in trouble and given the nature of the business they are involved in, we should take action before we have any major problem. But it seems that the problem is not an easy one to handle. It is not a matter of just giving PIA another subsidy or handout, it is a matter of rethinking PIA’s strategy and its positioning, and then implementing it innovatively and effectively. Does the government and PIA management have the capacity to undergo the process? Looking at the changes over the last many years, it seems unlikely. PIA has been too bureaucratic and stoic. It is more likely that PIA will continue to limp along, and continue to look for and get band-aids from the government. But this is clearly not the desirable outcome and it will not help PIA, the government or the people of Pakistan in the medium to long run.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]